


Oh, Gods...

by OtoRose



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Day At The Beach, Developing Relationship, F/F, FE Femsplash (2017), Friends to Lovers, Lesbian Character, Might as well be canon, Ojou-sama, Post-Game(s), Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 08:43:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11825157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtoRose/pseuds/OtoRose
Summary: Maribelle's been awfully busy, but Lissa has just the thing to get Maribelle's nose out of her books: A trip to the beach! One pushy redheaded merchant later, Lissa's sure she's got the key to Maribelle's heart!





	Oh, Gods...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tenthstar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenthstar/gifts).



> This fic was created for Tenthstar, as part of the FE Femsplash 2017 gift exchange! Thanks for giving me the chance to write brand new pairs (for me)!

“Exalt Courier Delivery for-“

Maribelle grabbed the letter so fast that she sent the courier spinning, and slammed the door on the poor, confused civil servant. With eager hands, she cracked open the wax seal bearing the symbol of the Exalt (how lovely, that proper care was taken to ensure the old tradition didn’t die off!) and unfolded the missive.

“Dear Maribelle,”

She frowned. The penmanship hadn’t improved any, had it? But it would hardly matter, she knew. Within a few more words, she’d forget all about the atrocious handwriting and be absorbed in…

“I miss you so much! I was so used to having you there on our travels together with the Shepherds that mine feel so lonely now! But as I write this, the sun is shining high and birds are singing, so I thought it was just about time I saw you again!”

Maribelle stopped breathing, for a short moment, folded the scroll, and stamped one heeled boot beneath her desk, her face in a soft, hidden smile.

“I’ve found a beachside inn in my travels. I’ve enclosed its location – you _have_ to come and meet me here! If only for one day, we can have this escape to ourselves! And I bet you _need_ escape, since you have your nose in books all day long!”

Maribelle snorted, self-consciously marking her place in a huge tome, and flipping the cover closed with a heavy *thud*. There, now it’d been proven untrue!

“I’ll be here two more days. You’d better actually come visit! Seeing you again would be the best!

With Affection,  
Lissa”

Maribelle looked at the letter, turned to the thrice-cursed pile of books mounding her desk, and took note of the location written within. She took her own parchment, dipped her pen, and began to write.

“Dearest Lissa,

How wonderful to hear from you! I shall meet you on the beach, tomorrow noon, or today if the courier is slow…”

***

Lissa burst through the door of her seaside bungalow. How long had it been? And today she’d be here! A momentary blush spread across her cheeks and shoulders – the redheaded proprietor had convinced her to purchase a “swimsuit” of pale blue, that left her legs and arms and midriff bare, and displayed rather more of her chest than she was accustomed to. Chrom would have died! But Chrom wasn’t there, was he? And Lissa was. And she’d wear whatever she wanted, thank-you-very-much. So when she’d hesitated at the scandalous design, and the proprietress had said yes, it might be a little daring, and perhaps someone like Lissa might want something a little more dignified and conservative, Lissa threw caution to the wind.

And there she stood, in the warm salt wind, the hot sand of the summer beach stinging her bare feet, the sun in the sky marking noon. Still pinkened with embarrassment, she scanned the sands – and was rewarded with naught but mounded dune-shapes, as far as the eye could see.

Perhaps Maribelle was simply late? But she was MARIBELLE. Maribelle couldn’t be late, she’d suffer death before discourtesy! Nevertheless, her shoulders sagged, and she trod out towards the water across the bleached-white sands.

But, out of the corner of her eye – there, in a shadow? She had to squint, peering through the brightness, but she was sure…

She started in a run.

There, beneath a canopy as white as the sand, sat a woman in full crinolines, surrounded by books and scrolls that smelled as strongly of dust as she did of roses.

“Maribelle! What on earth are you doing?!”

Maribelle’s eyes shone as she looked up from an open book. “A little reading while I was waiting, of course! And…”

Both women’s eyes went wide as they spoke in chorus. “WHAT are you WEARING?”

Lissa recovered faster. “It is a _swimming suit_ , and it is fashionable and functional! With this, I’ll brave both the waves and the sun with ease! My suitors will look on with envy as I master the summer!” She managed to say it without blushing. The proprietress had told her all that, after all!

“Well, I am wearing fashion appropriate to a young lady who will be a magistrate someday!” Maribelle lifted her chin, gazing down at her gown, her stockings, her heeled boots. “MY suitors may address their interest to me in a proper fashion, at my manor, instead of bleating across the sand like common livestock!”

“But you must be boiling, in all that!”

“It… It is _slightly_ warm. But I get to see you again, here! What’s a little shimmer compared to seeing my best friend in the world?”

Lissa outshone the sun with her smile, and Maribelle had to admit that, scandal though it was, the swimsuit did favor her body. And it must be cooler than her dress…

“Come, sit here under my parasol, I’ve not seen you in months!”

“That’s a parasol?” Lissa marveled. “It’s closer to a tent! Why’d you bring all those books?”

“Isn’t it customary to sit seaside and do some light reading? The breezes are so refreshing, after all!”

Lissa frowned. “It is CUSTOMARY to run in the sand, and to go swimming, and to lie in the sun!”

Maribelle looked as though she’d just bit into a lemon. “But the sand sticks to everything, and the water would ruin my clothes, and the sun would destroy my complexion! I’m terribly delicate, you know!” She sighed. “Besides, I have so much reading left to do today! Why don’t you join me? Some of these are actually interesting, I’ll have you know. This one is about the procedures for contesting false heraldry…”

Lissa was as red as if she’d been in the sun for hours. “You accepted my invitation just so you could come out here and **study**?”

“I came out to study _with you_ , dear. And this is just the most beautiful scenery you could possibly have worn… er, found to study in!”

 “ **Study with me?** ” Lissa set her jaw, her face red. “I’m not some boring tutor! I haven’t seen you in forever, and you want to just… sit about and do nothing?”

“It’s hardly nothing! Besides, some of us have responsibilities! We can’t all spend our whole lives frolicking about wherever we please as though it were work!”  Maribelle thought her tone was perfectly reasonable and courtly. But when Lissa’s jaw trembled, and her eyes began to shine with tears, Maribelle felt her heart cave. “Lissa, I…”

But Lissa had turned on her heel and run halfway across the sand.

***

The sun stained the sky a deep orange, fading to red, and Maribelle looked listlessly out the window of her bungalow, and sighed in the balmy evening air.

She couldn’t make sense of the words in her books; they blurred together before her eyes, as though she were looking at them through clear sea-water.

She reached up to wipe her cheeks dry. Had she become Miriel? A stiff shell of a woman, with hardly any love to match her…

But no. Miriel had found love, eventually, in the most dark and fearful of them all, hadn’t she? Spells and curses, together…

Maribelle sighed, and just as she lowered her head to rest on her crossed arms, she heard a knock at the door.

“I’m not interested in your swimsuits!” She called rudely, weakly, to the proprietress who was certainly on the other side. It was bad enough she’d been hounded all afternoon, but there must be some decency…

“Are you interested in the rest of me?” The voice on the other side was small as a mouse.

Maribelle rushed from her table to the wooden door, flung it wide, her arms spread to embrace…

Lissa stepped back a pace, leaving Maribelle agape – but then smiled, and lifted the ceramic pot in her hands. “Tea. It’s your favorite. May I come in?”

Maribelle found her hand catching dampness at the corner of her eye. “Of course you may. Silly.”

They set the teapot on the table, between a pile of elderly scrolls and a volume on Property Rights At The Plegian Border.

“I found out, you know. You said it was whatever I liked. I can’t imagine how you sat through so many cups of milky Ylissean black tea, when…”

Maribelle took a deep breath of the aroma rising from the cup…

“It’s elderflower. Your favorite. You didn’t need to pander to me, Maribelle.”

Maribelle frowned. “I wasn’t lying, you know.” She took a long, sweet sip of the warm liquid – suddenly, the balmy air felt comfortable. “I’d drink anything, to be with you.”

“I suppose it was silly of me, wasn’t it? Thinking you could be just like me, go anywhere you wanted…” Lissa’s eyes were downcast. “But I have been working! I’ve been learning! Chrom’s helpless on his own, you know. One of us has to understand the workings of the world! And…”

Maribelle caught Lissa’s hand, folding it in her own. “I WOULD go anywhere you went. I’m the stupid one, for making work more important than my…”

“Best friend in the world?” Lissa blinked away sea-salt tears.

Maribelle leaned across the table. Lissa was shocked, in the moment. Maribelle’s lips tasted of elderflower.

As Lissa closed her eyes, she thought it might be her favorite, too.

***

The wan dusklight made Lissa’s body a dark, curved form, lined in silver, when Maribelle finally opened her eyes. She was stiff throughout her body, her joints unmoving and splayed, but beautifully, joyfully free. She ran a gentle hand through Lissa’s mussed blonde hair, and Lissa stirred.

“Is this everything?” She murmured. “All of it, I mean. You’ll go back to Ylisstol to study, and I’ll be off to frolic again…”

Maribelle found Lissa’s hand, pulled her close. They were still sweat-damp in the heat, the night almost as sweltering as the day, when a breeze blew through reed shades, kissing them cool.

“It’s important work you’re doing.” Maribelle chided. “You’ll know more about our land than our Exalt does, or anyone else for that matter.”

“And you’ll see that it’s justly governed.” Lissa laid her head on Maribelle’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I chided you for studying. I know that what you’re doing…”

“Is better done by your side. I wanted…” Maribelle sighed. “I wanted you to think I was important, when I’m just a silly noble girl with piles of paper and a silly conceit.”

“You’re a Maribelle, with her nose in her books and her head full of big things. That’s important enough for me. My Maribelle.”

“My Lissa. You’ll come see me. Often. Won’t you?”

“Every trip will start and end in Ylisstol.” Maribelle could feel Lissa’s blush. “Just like this?”

“Exactly like this.”

Lissa buried her hair in Maribelle’s sweet-scented curls, and deflated with a slow, warm sigh. “It’ll be hard to leave.”

“Then we’ll make the most of every moment, dear. Isn’t that what you always said?”

“It sounds better like this, when we’re not facing down marauders and pirates and bears…”

“Why, but there’s a bare marauder right here-“

Maribelle’s words were cut off when Lissa thumped her with a down pillow.

“Barbarian.” Maribelle whispered, fondly, as she flung the pillow aside. “I’ll have you know, I won’t permit our tryst to be secret. You’re to be a proper suitor, or none at all.”

Lissa grinned. “In that case, I’ll leave, and present myself at your manor instead of making love to you like common-“

Maribelle muffled Lissa’s words with a sudden, ferocious kiss. “Only once our vacation is over. We’ll travel back together, make our proclamation, and you can be off once more.”

Lissa nuzzled against Maribelle’s collarbone. “Well… maybe I can stay, for just a little while.”

“Perfect.” Maribelle was a cat that found the cream. “As long as you’re there, you can help me study.”

“Come out swimming with me tomorrow, and it’s a deal.”

“For you, darling Lissa, I’d do anything. Even wear that _common_ swimming costume. Nobody else is likely to see, after all.”

“Then it’s a date.” Lissa slipped her arms ‘round Maribelle’s waist, in the deep heat. “I’ve been waiting forever for this.”

“We’ll finish our work. Together. And we’ll never have to wait again.” Maribelle cradled Lissa’s head against her breast, her manicured, slightly-ink-stained fingers tracing complex pictures gently across her lover’s back.

Lissa was lost to sleep, deep and comforted, before Maribelle had finished her sentence.

“Hasty.” Maribelle clucked her tongue, and feathered her fingers through Lissa’s mussed hair. “You can’t even stay up for the most important part?”

“Love you f’rev’r…” Lissa murmured through the fog of sleep. And for some time the room was quiet, but for the crickets singing outside and the occasional long cry of a gull.

“Perhaps you’ll make a proper suitor after all.” Maribelle closed her eyes, and lay back against the pillow, and the future magistrate joined her lover the future diplomat in slumber.

***

Not even the sonorous sound of Lissa’s snoring could overcome the crack of thunder that woke the lovers and heralded the rainy season. They had kissed away the summer sky, and left behind them grey clouds that spilled rain across open sunbeams.

“I visited a country far off, the Dawn Kingdom, where men and women carried great curved swords. There, a sun shower like this is called a ‘fox’s wedding.’”

“Are you a fox now, then, too, as well as a princess and a diplomat?” Maribelle mused, smiling. “Or is it some other-“

“No fair!” Lissa scowled. “ _I_ was going to tell _you_ the foxes aren’t as lucky as I am.”

“Yes, but I know that much. Ours will not be raining, and there will be fireworks at night.”

“Ours!?” Lissa’s eyes went wide in an expression that made Maribelle chuckle behind her hand.

“You say the oddest things when you sleep, darling. I can only assume you spoke true when you promised to cherish and protect me until the stars fell down and the oceans went dry.” Maribelle gave a mock-sigh, and clucked her tongue. “I can’t answer you until I return to my estate, of course, but I’ll not keep a lady waiting longer than necessary, not when she promises forev-“

“Do you think Chrom will-“

“ _Chrom_ will do what is best for the realm, and that is what is best for me. Us.” Maribelle’s hand rested gentle on Lissa’s shoulder. “Besides, he loves you. If he doesn’t want to see you happy, what good is he?”

“What would make me happy _now_ ,” Lissa pouted “is for that rain to clear up, so you could get a suit and we can go on that date.

Maribelle’s smile was cautious, at best. “I’m really quite glad it IS raining. Going out – well, I’d show, wouldn’t I?”

Lissa gasped. “Maribelle! Nobody will-“

Maribelle silenced her with a tap on the nose. “But there’s nothing about me you haven’t seen, is there? So I’ll… try one on. Here. For you. And we can have tea, and listen to the thunder. And you can have your fill of common, scanty swimming outfits.”

A blush crept up Lissa’s shoulders, showing pale, nigh-invisible freckles as it reached her cheeks. “That... that’ll be enough, for me.”

“Oh, thank Naga.” Maribelle slumped back in the bed. “This will do, then. Finally, a moment to relax, without-“

Lissa had her housedress over her shoulders and on in a flash, and tugged firmly at the suddenly-distraught Maribelle’s hand. “Then what are we waiting for! Anna’s the sweetest, really, you’ll love her!”

“Oh, gods…”


End file.
